This is an Amanda Doucette Mystery like no other I have read. As I have mentioned before on this blog, I am trying to expand my reading this year with the Canadian Book Challenge. So far, I am certainly reading a lot of books that I would never have picked up in the past. But it has been and will continue to be I trust a great journey.

This book is the first one in a thrilling new series by Barbara Fradkin. In the book we meet Amanda Doucette.

After surviving a horrific trauma in Nigeria, international aid worker Amanda Doucette returns to Canada to rebuild her life and her shaken ideals. There, the once-passionate, adventurous woman needs all her strength and ingenuity when a friend and fellow survivor goes missing in Newfoundland along with his son.

A trained first aid and crisis responder, Doucette joins forces with RCMP officer Chris Tymko to discover the truth. Their search leads them to the Great Northern Peninsula, a rugged land of Viking history, icebergs, whales, and fierce ocean storms.

Elsewhere a body gets hauled up in a fisherman’s net and evidence is mounting of an u settling connection with Amanda’s search for her friend. Fradkin writes evocatively of the beautiful, but often hostile Newfoundland landscape where Amanda soon finds herself fighting for her very survival.

I loved this book and the story line. I love the images of the east coast. Those waters are quite tumultuous and dangerous.

Barbara Fradkin is a retired psychologist who is fascinated with why people turn bad. She has written numerous short stories and novellas as well as the critically acclaimed Inspector Green novels. Two of these, Fifth Son and Honour Among Men, have won the Arthur Ellis Award for best novel. She lives in Ottawa